...and pregnant bloke will be no more

Of our NCT Gang of Six, we are now the last couple waiting to pop, with the arrival for T&T of their beautiful Lauren. The tontine sweepstake seems a distant joke and somehow irrelevant (assuming I get round to handing over the £60 that I have already spent!).

At 40 weeks plus five days, every twinge, twitch and twang is a harbinger of contractions...and pregnant bloke will be no more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine

Hurry up and wait

Phew! What to expect when you go to a big, ugly hospital: to wait for a looooong time.

We called up the hospital yesterday evening, and the duty midwife asked P to come in for a check up. We arrived at around 18:00. It took around two hours to be seen - bear in mind that they were expecting us. The midwifery team appears to have no system at all apart from word-of mouth to let the duty midwife know what's happening. Lots of unsubtle pressure from several worried pregnant blokes finally produced action.

The midwife we saw was excellent (Marlene from The Seychelles), and recommended a check by the registrar. Cue a delay of more than four hours waiting for the doc. Once again, the individuals (registrar and senior registrar) were excellent, and once again they seem to have little or no system - people simply roll up and wander off, or faff about looking for missing or mislaid notes. I wonder how much time NHS staff spend simply looking for things, each other or waiting?

At about midnight, almost six hours since we turned up, the senior registrar admitted P to a ward for overnight observation. And guess what? Yup, this was the only time we had not brought the hospital bag with us. D'Oh!

Lessons to be learned: bring a book, bring the hospital bag, be prepared to wait.

The only other conclusion I draw is that the NHS is chronically lacking in management. My experience has been that the staff *never* do what they said they would do when they said they would do it. They *always* have an excuse or find someone or something to blame - and it really is a blame culture. Is the NHS the last bastion of "muddle-through management"?

At the end of all this, P was prescribed some medication, promised before noon today. At around 14:00 we gave up waiting, and the midwives gave up chasing the hospital pharmacy, asking me to call back later and come to the ward to collect it. The prescription is still nowhere to be found. What a surprise.

http://www.stgeorges.nhs.uk/

Homeopathy or hospital?

Another exciting trip to the hosp, this time because the rash on her tummy is *very* raw. My big sister, ie a person who Knows Everything and has a fast internet connection, says it might be PUPPP syndrome - yessiree, a syndrome, no less. PP herself thinks it might be a reaction to drinking raspberry leaf tea, the only obvious change to her diet.

To cure the rash, the midwives recommended Piriton tablets, or calamine lotion, both of which PP refused on the grounds that she only takes homeopathic medicines, my favourite subject.

Yes, PP has been pill-popping various chalk tablets with fancy names, some of them recent additions to the intake. Even the raspberry leaf tea label has the most amazing twaddle on it.

As we approach drop day, I suspect all of this will vanish when it's a choice between stinging like buggery or gas & air...

Pic from http://www.nutrasanus.com/ - which I completely misread.

The Health Visitor Calls

Our assigned Health Visitor, Tara, pitched up today. A qualified nurse with nine years' experience on children's wards, Tara tried to explain what health visiting is, what she does, why, and the benefits. Tara is very friendly and it's good to see my taxes keeping her in employment. She was very positive about the home birth idea, and gave us lots of leaflets. Gosh.

No doubt I will sing a different tune at the first mild rash or touch of cradle cap.

I looked on the web for the Health Visitors' Association, and instead stumbled, or possibly stuttered, across http://www.stammering.org/. They even have ggggguest sssssspeakers at ccccconferences.

JJJohnny HHHammer, had a ttttterrible ssssstammer
He ccccccould hhhhhardly say a wwwwword
And so they ggggave him, mmmedicinal ccccccompound
Now he's seen, but never heard ...

Oh Yes.

Lyrics from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.hart/ once again.

Tasers in Childbirth

Tried the TENS machine. Awesome. Two AA batteries whack out enough of a jolt to make your muscles twitch uncontrollably. Think of sticking a PP3 battery on your tongue, except over an arm or leg. The sensation is not unlike a sneeze, and exactly like touching a cattle fence.

The TENS theory is that the shock encourages the body to produce endorphins, which mask the pain for the mother. In practice, especially if you set it to turbo boost (yes, except cars, everything has a turbo version), the TENS shocks raise the total sensory input so high that the body's receptors simply shut down.

Why does the heading Tasers in Childbirth spring to mind? Pic is from the excellent site, http://www.tbotech.com/advancedtaser.htm, where I discover that the Taser, too, is powered by AA batteries...

No middle ground

T in the NCT group texts me: "Nice photo of donovan on blog! I am v excited/pissing myself, no middle ground." As he also said, with another of the NCT group having "symptoms," it's all getting very real.

(I Googled Michael Jackson for a suitable image to link along the lines of "You make me feel so real," and found http://www.beerhunter.com/ instead. The pic in this entry is the *other* Michael Jackson, beerhunter)

Our days are numbered

The first of our NCT group has popped: Luke Donovan, 7lb 13 oz, c-section two days earlier than planned. Wow! One day he's inside, next day the UK population rises by one!

And the dad? No longer a pregnant bloke. Our days are numbered. Holy Shmoly.

Pic from http://www.theunbrokencircle.co.uk/artist_profile_donovan.htm, an impressive weave-your-own-carrots website on folk music.

And just to make it interesting

The boys have a £10 sweepstake on birth dates, last man standing takes all. Six couples, no babies yet, everything to play for...

"And just to make it interesting, we'll have a shilling on the side"... http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.hart/lyricsh/hill.html, and what a superb site it is too.

Last chance saloon

We're in the last chance saloon in terms of getting out and about. Weekends are fully booked, evening entertainment is pretty much off-limits. Birthday cards and presents have been stockpiled in advance (on the basis that I will suffer some kind of major incapacity to go shopping, clearly); all the baby clobber is in place, save a couple of John Lewis deliveries... Now we wait.

Five weeks to go... Every new Mum and Dad we know says Make the Most of It.

www.johnlewis.co.uk for everything

Ever felt you were back at school?

Much hilarity at the NCT class. First, we were asked to remember key points from the previous class. All I could remember was Pain, and that the NCT was against it.* Ever felt you were back at school?

We then discussed methods of pain relief, one of which was distraction. We were tempted to write football, beer and talking about cars, but thought better of it. (What wimps we are!)

More later about Swimming Pool Attendants and The Advantages of a Home Birth from the Pregnant Bloke's point of view...

* Calvin Coolidge, 30th US president and known as Silent Cal. When asked the subject of a preacher's sermon, Coolidge replied "Sin." When pushed to elaborate, Coolidge said "The preacher was against it." Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge#.22Silent_Cal.22 and that's where the picture is from, too.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (reprise), Pre-Eclampsia (reprise) and Eleanor Bron (prise)

PP's hands are still swelling, and I wonder if this is the dreaded pre-eclampsia? The doc reckons not, as she has no protein in her pee. (We had asparagus for supper last night, which might have confused the test more than somewhat...)

Pre-eclampsia is A Bad Thing, though presumably not as bad as eclampsia itself, an affliction now obscured by its grander cousin.

Speaking of words only used as diminutives, Eleanor Bron started a campaign some time ago to encourage people to use positives, such as trepid, corrigible, defatigable and so-on. Perhaps we might start the same for pregnancy, rescuing eclampsia from prefix obscurity.

A doomed campaign? Come to think of it, whatever happened to the effable Eleanor Bron?

Billions of blue blistering barnacles

Latest news: full term is anything between 37 and 42 weeks. Another gem of surprise learned in the NCT class.

All the hoohah and excitement about counting down the 40 weeks (see early blog entries) turns out to be piffle. A baby is deemed to be full term from 37 weeks up to 42 weeks and, in practice, anywhere in the five-week window is situation normal. Or possibly snafu. (My guess is that the 37-42 spread is something like 95 per cent range, and an arithmetical bell emblazoned 'standard deviation' is ringing in the muffled distance...)

Anyway, stuff that: this numerical guesswork and ignorance means that we are between four and nine weeks away... Four??? FOUR!!! Billions of blue blistering barnacles: FOUR WEEKS!!!

Pic swiped from the very jolly http://www.angelfire.com/super2/animorphs/home.html and you can find a superb directory of curses at http://www3.sympatico.ca/brooksdr/haddock/main.htm

Gritty, grumpy and realistic

"This is one man's month by month story of pregnancy from a bloke's point of view. It is full of helpful tips about what to expect from conception to delivery, and covers topics such as: His feelings about impending fatherhood; Coping with his partner’s mood swings and health crises; His changing relationship with his partner; Dealing with her morning sickness and her food cravings; Ultrasounds and baby school; Understanding the baby's development; A must-have book for all prospective parents, especially fathers-to-be, written with humour, sensitivity and hard-won wisdom."

Complete with jokey cover design, it sounds awful. How about "Pregnancy from a bloke's perspective, written by a normal man more interested in wetting the baby's head than vaginal secretions."

Gritty, grumpy and realistic. A bit like 'Life on Mars.' (I was at the same school as Philip Glenister, a brilliant actor even then, as was Simon Russell Beale - same school, brighter brilliance.)

Find 'Diary of a Pregnant Dad' at http://www.gazellebookservices.co.uk/ISBN/0975168002.htm

Things that make you go hmmmm

The first contact list for the NCT class so we could keep in touch by email was sent to the women's email addresses only. Things that make you go hmmmm...

C&C Music Factory, http://www.ifilm.com/video/2794880 in the 1990s

Making a beer belly look amateur

Satisfyingly, the somewhat obvious theory about women being maladapted to bipedalism was confirmed at the NCT class. Aided by impressively dated-looking posters, the class leader showed what happens to a woman's body during pregnancy, making a beer belly look amateur. One drawing showed the ligaments that attach the uterus to the skeleton, and, sure enough, it is attached to the spine - an ideal design when the uterus is dangling down under a quadruped's spine like a dog, and no good at all for us bipeds.

(Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." Which reminds me: religion.... )

Hmm, the NCT classes have really made me think. Quite an achievement. It's all become oh-so-real. Visit http://www.nct.org.uk/

Chronic back pain and the rest

Ouch! She has back pain so bad, she can hardly walk. And, guess what: I have a theory. Oh Yes.

Apart from subscribing to the totally discredited aquatic-phase theory of human evolution, I also adhere to the "we're really savages dressed in fine clothes" argument. In a nutshell, this means our heads are full of 21st-century nonsense (homeopathy, religion, algebra) while our eating, reproductive and posture habits are firmly stuck in the Bronze Age. And I don't mean cutting a dash in the Tanning Parlour.

Though we have become bipedal, women's bodies are not adapted to carrying a child when standing upright. On all fours is actually more comfortable for the mother and baby, but we have lost quadripedal motion; our legs are too long. In the case of Ms Julia Roberts, waaaaay too long.

Not exactly news, I am sure. The result? Chronic back pain and the rest. Do Darwin and Dawkins have views?

Pic from http://academy.asd20.org/kadets/lundberg/darwin/CharlesDarwinD.html by Doug Lundberg, I think. Interesting site.

The London Review of Breakfasts

Now that's what I call a blog: The London Review of Breakfasts, http://londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com/... and check out the names of the contributors:

AA GRILL, ARMAND CROISSANT, BERNIE TOAST, BLAKE PUDDING, BRAD WURST, BREE OSHE, CATHY LATTE, CHRIS P BACON, CORIN FLAKES, DES AYUNO, DR SIGMUND FRIED, ED BENEDICT, EGGATHA CHRISPIE, EGGMUND HILLARY, EGON TOAST, GOLDIE QUORN, GRACIE SPOON, H.P. SEUSS, HAMISH PASTRY, HASHLEY BROWN, HENRIETTA CRUMPET, HERBY BANGER, JUAN SUGAR, MABEL SYRUP, MALCOLM EGGS, MAMA LADE, MEGAN BACON, MOLLY CODDLE-DEGG, MOOSE LEE, MORCILLA BLACK, MUSTAPHA SAUSAGE, ORVA EASY, PAM AU CHOCOLAT, PAM DE MIE, PHIL ENGLISH, POPPY TARTT, REGGIE BREK, SAUL T. RASHER, SCOTT CHEIGG, TINA BEANS, TOMMY KAY, PAM CAKES AND SIAN FLAKES, VEGGIE KRAY, VITA BICKS, YOLKO ONO

I am not making this up, honest; they are. http://londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com/2005/08/reviews-by-contributor.html What a great site!

A simple thing like a stepladder

One very slight disadvantage of the room we are using... not pregnancy-friendly!

The steps to the loft room, similar to a bunk-bed ladder, are hard enough to negotiate after a hearty supper and suitable neck oil. For a pregnant woman, they're a definite no-no. Amazing how a simple thing like a stepladder can be completely defeating.

(While I was looking for an image, I came across this site: http://www.bizrate.co.uk/babies_kids/)

Vorsicht! Spielende Kinder!

For the first time in a long time, we are apart - here I am stuck in a (very smart) hotel in Karlsruhe, there she is in Leafy Wimbledon. A very peculiar feeling. I miss the kicks and the daily reports of progress. What on earth will it be like when Number One pops out?

Cousin Simon cannot bear to be away from his family. He even missed our wedding because of it. I have the faintest glimmering of understanding for him now - even if he is still in the Bad Books.

Pic from http://www.ka-news.de/

Yup, I feel like an Expectant Bloke

First big kit-buying spree was a major success: we crossed the critical pyschological barrier of accepting that It's All For Real. We did manage to come back with the blankets for a pram not a cot, and bought a bottle-feeding kit when we want breastfeeding, but apart from that, a giant success.

Yup, I feel like an Expectant Bloke.

Got the kit at John Lewis in Kingston, http://www.johnlewis.com/ Superb staff, excellent range, and the most overheated place on earth.